Have you ever been to a Renaissance Festival or Faire? Today’s guest post comes courtesy of Gia Volterra de Saulnier, a performer with a love of Renaissance Festivals and a fascinating story! With no budget to work with, Gia markets Renaissance Festivals to raise money for causes she cares about. Gia shared on our Facebook Page that the two Faires she promoted in 2011 pulled in about $9,000! Read on for Gia’s 10 tips, originally written on May 10, 2011!

Marketing a normal Renaissance Festival or Faire usually comes with a large budget, but for our Renaissance Festivals — which are really fundraisers — we have to operate with little to no budget at all.

Here are 10 low- or no-budget tips for marketing a Renaissance Festival:

1. Get a website set up

If you have a small business (or have been in business for a long period of time) you really need to have a website.  It can even be a free one that you get from Yahoo or Comcast.  Just even an informational website can be enough to get you up on the web.

2. Create a Fan Page on Facebook

This is an imperative step for all businesses today. And even if you have a Fan Page, you really need to monitor it and post at least once a week (or twice a week) to engage your “fans.”  Ask questions or make announcements to your “audience.”  Always make sure that you answer all your fans’ questions or comments as soon as you can! This means negative comments that might come up as well.  These are your “customers,” even virtually, so treat the comment with honey and not vinegar. Here’s our Fan Page: Renaissance Performers and Merchants

3. Create an Event Page on Facebook

Just because you have a Fan Page, you should really put up an Event Page and invite all your local area friends (for us, it was the New England area).  You can do this on your Fan Page.

4. Find your niche market or tribe

For us, since we are Renaissance Festivals, I found many different Renaissance Faire websites/forums, magazines, online e-zines, and blogs and posted our event there.  I also found that this since this is a family friendly event, we posted on parenting sites like Work it Mom, Café Mom, and Boston Parent Pages.

5. Get your event listed anywhere you can for free

For us, I used Festival Network Online, WhoFish, Boston.com, WGBH, WBOS, RenSpace, LiveJournal, Going.com, Guidezilla, and Evite, as well as others.

6. Get your business up on Twitter

Yes, Twitter.  You can set up a different account as long as you have a different email address.  Make sure you follow like-minded businesses/services and tweet about your Faire every day. Know what Hashtags (usually a #sign) are and use them wisely!  Also you can retweet things that are important to your event.

7. Create a blog site(s) and post every week if at all possible

I prefer WordPress (it’s free and pretty easy to use), but you can also go on LiveJournal and post there as well. Just know it’s a community site and people will leave comments, so be sure to follow up on all comments. How I’ve been doing it: I promote either a vendor or performer that’s coming to our event.  I tell our “audience”/”Readers” what this particular vendor or performer is all about and write about their products or CDs, and include website links.

8. Network, network, network – word of mouth is your friend!

Just because you build it, does not mean the people will come. Not everyone is on social media (shocking, I know), so make fliers/posters and create a Press Release for your event. (You can even post this press release on your blog page and your fan page!)

9. If your event is for a nonprofit, you can create a Public Service Announcement

I am new to this, too, but if you can write up a quick event (not campy) announcement, some radio stations will play your 10 second (or sometimes longer) announcements.

10. At the event, make sure you treat all your customers with a smile

For us, we interact with all the customers coming through the door. We want them to believe that we are a magical place that they stepped back through time in.

I hope these tips help you in promoting your event or business!

Enjoy a performance by The Pillage Idiots at
our Winslowshire Renaissance Faire, June 26th, 2011:

We hope you’ll come and visit our Renaissance Festivals; they are for great causes here in New England:

New Hampshire Renaissance Faire in Kingston, NH (May 12-13 & 19-20, 2012) – Celebrating our 8th season! This year’s main charity is the New Hampshire Food Bank, but the Faire is also raising money for First Star Tonight through the always-popular Wench & Lad Auction. First Start Tonight provides support for terminally ill children, young adults and their families in the New Hampshire area. For more information, see the NH Renaissance Faire website at http://www.nhrenfaire.com/

Abbadia Mare Festival in Gloucester, MA (July 21-22, 2012) – A Renaissance Festival held on the beautiful grounds of Hammond Castle, to benefit the Castle Museum. For more information, see our website at http://www.abbadiamarefestival.com

Waterville Valley Renaissance Faire at the Waterville Valley Resort in Waterville Valley, NH (August 18-19 & 25-26, 2012) – For more information, see our website at http://www.watervillevalleyrenfaire.com/